Samsung XP941 High end M.2 performance

Despite being last year’s model (and originally an OEM drive), the XP941 is still one of the faster PCIe M.2 SSDs available. The drive is sold in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB (as tested) models, and uses the standard 2080 M.2 form factor — no PCIe slot adaptor is included. The XP941 is an AHCI SSD, using four lanes of PCIe 2.0. The drive features Samsung’s own 64Gbit 19nm MLC NAND, with the S4LNO53X01 controller. We tested the 512GB model and not surprisingly, performance was excellent. Peak sequential read and write speeds were 1,075/ 875MB/s — easily outpacing the fast SATA drives as well as some of the PCIe competition. 4K random read and writes were also solid, at 29/102 MB/s, respectively. Samsung rates the drive at 122,000/72,000 IOPS for random 4K read and writes. Performance is degraded on the 256GB and 128GB versions of the SSD, though it’s the write speeds that suffer the most. The drive is rated to 400GB of data writes a day, with a three-year warranty. One boon for laptop users is that the XP941 has a 0.08W low-power idle state that will help your battery last longer. However, check your compatibility, as not all laptops or desktops can boot from the SSD. The 128GB model is available for around $165, while the 256GB will set you back $320. The 512GB model at $640 offers a gigabyte per dollar ratio comparable to other M.2 SSDs.

Plextor M6e Black Edition Besting the SATA 6Gbps competition Review

Hidden under a sleek black cover, with standout red heatsink, the M6e has a rather standard AHCI PCIe M.2 SSD. With the integrated cooling solution clamped over the drive (and a ‘warranty void if removed sticker’ adorning the screws) plus an extra SATA power connector, it’s more than just a PCIe slot adaptor. But still, if you have a suitable PCIe M.2 slot on your motherboard, the SSD could be plugged in directly. This is handy, as it means you could use the drive without taking up an extra PCIe slot if you upgrade your motherboard. Our test SSD had a 256GB capacity, made up of Toshiba MLC NAND coupled to a Marvell 88SS9183 controller working through a PCIe x2 interface. Sequential read and write speeds of 637MB/s and 556MB/s are a cut above SATA SSDs, but not by a huge margin. It’s worth noting that the lower-capacity SSDs have slower write speeds, while the larger ones tend to give a performance boost. The Plextor SSD comes with a Turbo software tool that can use 25% of your system RAM as a drive cache to boost performance. It also supports AES-256 data encryption, but no endurance fi gure is given. The smaller 128GB Plextor SSD costs $220, which isn’t a particularly good deal over the $349 for the 256GB version we tested. The larger 512GB M6e is hard to fi nd, but offers a slightly better price per gigabyte ratio at $660. All the Plextor drives offer a full fi ve-year warranty

Google Now Launcher Make your phone Pure Android.

Most phone manufacturers place their own software ‘skins’ over each Android handset they release, often changing the OS experience (most notably the launcher) for the worse. Thankfully, Google Now Launcher is here to purify your Android phone. Possibly the most exciting app that Google has released in a while, Google Now Launcher brings a Nexus-style purity to your phone, providing it with a stock Android launcher. You can now enjoy an experience that’s previously only been available on the Nexus 5, so long as your device is running Android 4.x or above. The Google Now Launcher also makes Google’s personal assistant a core part of your phone. It’s a Google service that offers personalised information ‘cards’ that you can reach by swiping left on your home screen, in order to choose what you want to receive notifi cations about. It also provides always-on voice capability, which you can reach by saying “OK Google”, and then asking it a question.

YoVivo

With so many cloud storage solutions available, it’s highly likely that you have your documents, images and videos spread out all over the place, making it very di cult to track down a speci c le. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have access to all of your clouds in the one place? That’s exactly what YoVivo! does. Once you’ve given it access to your Camera Roll, social networks (including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram and more) and cloud storage accounts (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and more are supported), your les will be accessible from within the app, so you won’t have to go on a scavenger hunt every time you need to nd something. Its user-friendly interface lists all of your services together for easy browsing. There’s even an easy-to-use slideshow creator that lets you drop in images, videos, music and text from any of the les you’ve linked to the app, with further editing options like lters and emoji livening things up further. YoVivo! is useful and fun. Stephen Lambrechts

BitTorrent Shoot

Eager to get away from its reputation as a piracy tool, BitTorrent has gotten into the habit of releasing apps that show a number of positive uses for its P2P protocol. First its storage solution BitTorrent Sync, then its completely private messenger app BitTorrent Bleep, and now comes BitTorrent Shoot, an app that uses P2P technology to send and receive large photo and video batches to your friends super fast. Simply enter Select mode to start picking the les you want to send, then hit ‘Send Selected’ to produce a QR code. Your friend (who must also have the BitTorrent Shoot app installed) can then scan the code, transferring the les directly onto their Camera Roll. The app lets you receive an unlimited amount of transfers for free, though an in-app purchase of $2.49 if you want to send your friends stu after your third batch. BitTorrent Shoot is a fast and easy-to-use app that makes sending multiple les to another device an absolute breeze

Photoshop Mix Adobe is mixing things up a bit on iOS (and Android) tablets.

Adobe’s latest app for tablets is a slick, touchbased tool for compositing simple double-layer images in a way that’s very reminiscent of what the full version of Photoshop offers. Admittedly short on features, Photoshop Mix is nevertheless a responsive and attractive package that could do with some fi ne-tuning. Dropping in and out of its various tools can feel a little confusing, and we’d appreciate some additional refi nement functionality, but for the most part, Photoshop Mix does a decent job of guiding you through its various areas. The integration of Creative Cloud tools allows you to save your compositions as Photoshop .psd fi les on your Camera Roll, so you can pull them back and keep on working on them. You can also apply various Looks and Enhancements to your images, though don’t expect Photoshop Mix to be a retouching tool — for that, we recommend the previously released Photoshop Touch app. Free and straightforward, Photoshop Mix makes for a fi ne addition to your stable of Adobe apps.

Perfect Tube

There are plenty of YouTube clients on the Windows Phone platform, including a YouTube app published by Microsoft itself, so the fact that Perfect Tube is worth a mention speaks for itself in a way. It’s clear that this third-party YouTube app, developed by Perfect Thumb, was built from the ground up for the Windows Phone platform. The video player has a full set of large controls that are intuitive and discrete. Changing the volume or skipping through a video is navigated by swiping up/down or left/right, respectively, making the controls a lot less ddly than nding little icons or dragging a miniature toggle. However, it isn’t just the controls that are useful — the app also facilitates the full range of video interactions if you sign in, and the home page features your subscriptions page and a ‘popular local clips’ section. Unfortunately, you can’t comment on videos, which may turn some users away, but if you can live without that social element, Perfect Tube is a great YouTube app for Windows Phone